


The only difference between science and screwing around is writing it down

by HadesGhostGirl



Series: DannyMay 2020 [4]
Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: DannyMay (Danny Phantom), DannyMay 2020, Gen, Identity Reveal, Pseudoscience, Science, maddie makes some discoveries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:48:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24395266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HadesGhostGirl/pseuds/HadesGhostGirl
Summary: Maddie makes some interesting discoveries about ectoplasm.
Series: DannyMay 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1760131
Comments: 20
Kudos: 352





	1. Science

**Author's Note:**

> Fucking wild that Vlad became a halfa because of soda amiright?

Everyone knew that blood and ectoplasm didn't mix. That was basic ectology. Blood was alive and ectoplasm was dead. Those two things couldn't mix. Basic.

So then why had this worked? Why had she even done it?

The sheet in front of her had a title and a list of scenarios. The title read "Ectoplasm-Blood combination test". The first scenario was a control. Simply put the two together and see what happens. As expected there, the blood fizzled as the ectoplasm sank through it and no matter how much the two were stirred together they stayed fastidiously separate.

It was as the scenarios went on that things got interesting. Mixing the two in water created steam and not much else. Mixing them in soda caused a slow reaction that hadn't finished yet. That one gave Maddie pause. She'd only included it because they had a half drunk can that Danny had left down here by the computer. She decided to let that one continue working as she went down the sheet.

Heating them was next. This one yielded the same result as the control, although with significantly more fizzling. Running an electrical charge through them created an instantaneous result. A stable, slightly luminescent combination of blood and ectoplasm. It shouldn't have been possible. But there it was.

She checked the voltage. Had she really set it that high? "What if it was lower?" Maddie muttered as she set up a new test tube. She fiddled with the settings, lowering the voltage. This time there was no result. She bumped the voltage back up to full. Bam. Stable combination. "This is impossible."

That was when the soda mixture caught her eye again. "No that's impossible." It wasn't a stable mixture, but as she watched the blood and ectoplasm (and soda) combined. There were viscous bubbles popping on the surface but it was happening.

Maddie wondered what this meant for their research.

"Jack!" She called, wondering what her husband would have to say to this.


	2. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maddie works out some things. She still isn't quite there yet though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasn't planning on this having more than 1 chapter but here we are.

Maddie was lost. All of their research was completely defunct because of this one discovery. If blood and ectoplasm could form a stable compound then- gah. She smacked her hand down on the counter causing the test tube rack to wobble.

That one was the one that had her truly lost. The soda one. Why would soda change anything? But the longer she left that tube the more stable the compound became.

She tentatively began calling the mixture haemecto. Electrified haemecto became stable almost instantly but required a charge so high that-

The portal! The only thing she could think of having s high enough charge and ectoplasm concentration that could achieve this reaction naturally was the portal. She knew two people who had had accidents with portals. Danny seemed fine. He hadn't-

Vlad. Vlad had had ectoacne for months, possibly longer. She glanced at the still volatile soda haemecto. What if-? No that was impossible.

"Jack!" Maddie yelled again. Was he even home?

Jazz came down the stairs. "Dad went to get fudge," she explained. Her eyes caught on the test tubes in front of Maddie. "What are you doing?"

"Jazz honey," Maddie said, tension high in her voice. "I think I've just rendered all of your father and I's research completely redundant."

Jazz didn't look away from the test tubes. "Is that blood?"

"And ectoplasm," Maddie agreed nodding. She then pointed at the last two tubes in the rack. "And haemecto."

"Blood and ectoplasm combined." Jazz's eyes went wide. "Oh no." Maddie watched, becoming even more lost, as her daughter sprinted back up the stairs. She heard pounding foot steps as they raced up to the second story. Then a door slammed shut and Maddie bemused stared at the test tubes.

"What prompted that reaction?" Maddie asked the tubes. Then her own eyes went wide. Her gaze moved to the portal. "You don't think?"


	3. Glow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this just became a reveal fic. I mean it was going there anyway, but here it is

Jazz came back down the stairs a little while later. Maddie glanced at her before returning her eyes to the microscope in front of her. "Sweetie could you turn out the lights for a moment?"

"Sure?" Jazz responded as she flicked the lights out.

Maddie frowned at the slide in her microscope. She hummed.

"On again."

"What's up?" Jazz asked as she moved closer. Maddie noticed that the way her daughter was moving seemed off, but chalked it up to confusion.

"Both elements of haemecto glow." Maddie picked up her clipboard and noted that fact down. "The amount the blood cells glow seems to be indicative of which combination method was used. For example," she tapped the slide marked soda. "The soda method glows less than the electrocution method."

Jazz stumbled forward. "I'm going don't push me," she grumbled under her breath.

"What was that Jazz?" 

"Nothing!" Jazz almost yelled. She stumbled again and glared over her shoulder. "Actually can I have a look?"

"Sure sweetie!" Maddie stepped back from the microscope to let Jazz see.

Jazz gulped and looked down into the microscope. Whatever she saw in it seemed to scare her. She leant back and Maddie frowned. That looked like she was making room for someone who was invisible without making it obvious she was making room for someone who was invisible. Jazz wouldn't have brought a ghost down to the lab. Not unless- 

Maddie remembered Danny's accident. She remembered the month following his accident. She glanced at the portal. She remembered how all of their equipment picked up Danny. She gasped. She stumbled backwards. "Danny?" She asked.

A disembodied voice said "Fuck."


	4. Gloves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one gets sad. Maddie comforts her kids and Jack comes home.

Maddie pulled the ecto gun off her belt. She tugged out a smaller version from her boot. She unlocked the Spector Deflector from around her waist. All three items she threw into a container and shoved under the nearest desk.

The space behind Jazz seemed go get thicker or tenser. Or perhaps that was just the tension Jazz was showing. Danny hadn't uttered a single word since he'd cursed moments before. Maddie had no idea if he was even still in the room. She yanked her gloves off.

"Mom?" Came Danny's voice again. Maddie glanced up. He was stood in front of her now. She supposed he had been before, but now he was visible. He was scrunching his shoulders forward, trying to make himself seem smaller, as he took a tentative step in her direction.

"Baby, I am so sorry," Maddie said. She wanted to grab him tight in a hug. She wanted to rub a hand through his hair. She wanted to hold her baby boy and wipe that anguished, scared look off his face. She didn't know if she could.

Instead, very slowly, she lifted her arms to the side. Maddie felt tears rising in her eyes as her son flinched away. She stayed still.

Danny searched her face. She wasn't sure what he was looking for but whatever it was he seemed satisfied. He smiled, a wet, small smile, and accepted her hug. She squeezed him tight. Jazz came up behind him and hugged them both.

"Mom," Danny said again, his voice still wobbling. "Mom, I'm sorry."

"Danny no," Maddie said, her voice soft and wobbling almost as much as his. "No, you don't apologise for this. A mother should never, ever instil this fear in her own child. Danny, I'm so sorry. I should have noticed." The tears were running down her face now. Danny and Jazz's eyes both shiny with unshed tears.

Both her kids burried their heads against her as those tears began to fall.

Upstairs, the door banged open and Jack yelled something about fudge. None of them answered him.

"Maddie?" He called from the top of the stairs.

"Down here Jack," Maddie said. As Jack's footsteps grew closer, Danny's grip on her tightened. She kept her arms around him. "It's okay Danny," she whispered to him.

"I know," he muttered into her shoulder, his breath cold through her suit.


	5. Regret

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter. Danny tells the truth about more than one thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a wild ride. The last 2 chapters especially.

What Jack saw as he came down the stairs was not what he expected. He knew Maddie had been doing an experiment with blood and ectoplasm and the results would probably be ready, his family gathered together, each gripping tightly to each other, I'm a weepy pile wasn't the result he was expecting. "Mads, what's up?"

Jazz looked between the three of them, locked eyes with Danny. He nodded and she backed off. Throughout this exchange, Maddie had been looking at Danny. He looked up at her and something passed between them. Something Jack couldn't recognise.

As Maddie stood, she didn't let go of Danny. "Jack, the results of my experiment have proven all of our research wrong."

Jack's eyebrows rose. "One experiment could do that?" Maddie nodded. She glanced down at Danny before taking one hand off of him to reach for her clipboard.

"Look at my notes," she said as she handed the clipboard to him.

Jack took it and looked. His eyebrows rose even further as he read the notes. "This is-"

"Impossible?" Maddie preempted him. "Well apparently not." He saw her briefly squeeze Danny. "Haemecto is a perfectly stable substance, given the right circumstances. I'll be honest, I didn't expect soda to be one of those circumstances." Danny snorted. Maddie looked at him. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," he said as he let go of his mother. She kept one hand on him. "Just something you guys should know but finish what you were saying first."

"Okay?" Maddie said, uncertainty clear in her voice as she turned back to Jack. "The soda result isn't important-"

"Yet," Danny added. Maddie gave him a look and he raised his hands.

"The soda result isn't important yet, it's this one that is," she tapped one of the results as her other hand tightened on Danny.

Jack read over those notes. "Haemecto formed by electrocution. Only place where that much electricity and ectoplasm could be in the same place is," he paused and looked up at the portal. "There." Danny tensed.

"Dad?" Jack turned to his son. "Dad my accident wasn't outside the portal."

Jack's eyes went wide, as did Maddie's. "Danny why didn't you say anything sooner?" Maddie asked, him as she gently placed a bare (that was odd) hand against Danny's cheek.

"I panicked. Didn't know how to explain it," Danny told her. "Then things got out of control and I couldn't tell you."

"Oh Danny." Maddie pulled their son back in for a hug. Jack frowned, completely out of the loop.

"What am I missing?"

Jazz put a hand on her father's arm. "Dad, Danny was inside the portal when it turned on," she told him.

Jack thought on that for a moment. He looked at Maddie's notes and then at Danny. "Inside the portal," he whispered. There was a clatter as the clipboard hit the metal flooring and then Jack was on his knees hugging his son. "You're the ghost kid?" He felt Danny nod against his shoulder. Then he swooped Danny up into the air, grinning wildly. "My son's a ghost hunter!"

Briefly, as he had scooped him into the air, Danny had looked terrified as soon as he spoke that look melted.

But Jack had seen it. Instantly everything he had ever said to that ghost kid came rushing back and he was slammed with a wall of regret. He put his son down carefully, but didn't let go.

The look on Maddie's face told him she had come to the same realisation. "We tried to hurt you," she whispered. "Oh Danny."

"It's okay Mom," Danny told her. "It's okay. I knew you'd accept me-"

"No you didn't," Jack cut him off. "If you did you wouldn't be so tense right now."

"No, deep down I knew," Danny reiterated. "Getting that fact to mesh withactually telling you guys?" Danny rubbed a hand against the back of his neck. "Not easy."

"Well then in that case," Jack said. "Danny Fenton, Danny Phantom, whichever you prefer, we are so proud of you. We love you. We accept you. But you are grounded."

Danny's jaw dropped open. "What? Why?"

"You've been stealing our equipment."

"You expect me to hunt ghosts without ghost hunting equipment?" Danny laughed. Jack grinned. Jazz rolled her eyes. Maddie smiled because she could see a weight had lifted off of her son's shoulders. Then she laughed as he floated up, the weight quite literally off his shoulders.

"Oh and that thing about soda I was laughing at?" He said as he settled into a comfortable position floating in the middle of their lab. "That's what happened to Vlad." Once again, Jack's eyebrows rose up.


End file.
